In recent years, formations of mobile networks including compact base stations have been underway. In general, when a terminal connects to the Internet in a mobile network, the terminal usually connects to the Internet by temporarily connecting through a mobile network management node in the operator network.
Note that for a mobile network including a compact base station, a technique in which when a terminal connects to the Internet through the compact base station, part of the traffic of the operator network is directly directed to the Internet or a LAN in order to reduce the load on the traffic has been examined.
Such a technique for sending traffic to a sub-route such as a LAN is called “traffic off-load” because this technique reduces the load on the main-route. Patent literature 1 discloses a technique for distributing traffic to the main-route and a sub-route(s).
The use of a sub-route to which traffic is off-loaded not only reduces the load on the traffic but also leads to a possibility of provision of a new service(s) such as creation of a website which only visiting customers can access.
Further, a server that provides services can obtain information tied to users (e.g., user attributes (genders, ages, and so on)) and provide a personalized service(s) to each user by using that information. By doing so, the satisfaction of users can be improved. As a result, stores can keep users and increase profits. Further, the user-friendliness on the user side also improves. Therefore, there are advantages for both the stores and the users.
Note that in order to realize the above-described personalization for each user, the server that provides a service needs to uniquely identify terminals or users using the terminals irrespective of the IP-addresses assigned to the terminals. This is because the address assigned to a terminal is usually not fixed for a particular user and could change every time the terminal connects to the compact base station.
Patent literature 2 discloses a technique in which even when a terminal performs a handover and thereby moves to a neighboring base station, the IP-address assigned to an application in the terminal as observed from the server side is unchanged.
Further, Non-patent literature 1 discloses a technique for realizing personalization for each user by using a cookie of an http protocol. The personalization method disclosed in Non-patent literature 1 is explained with reference to a sequence diagram shown in FIG. 14.
Firstly, a terminal 101 transmits an http get request to a third party server 103 (step S101). Upon receiving the http get request, the third party server 103 sets a set-cookie option in an http header and sends back an http response to the terminal 101 (step S1102). At this point, the terminal 101 detects the presence of the set-cookie option in the http response sent back from the third party server 103, and stores the information (step S1103).
In general, the cookie sent back in the step S1102 contains, for example, a session ID that is managed in an http layer. When connection is established again after the session is disconnected, it is possible to find out the previous session. As a result, it is possible to detect that the terminal is the same as the previous terminal even if the IP-address of the terminal has been changed.
When the terminal 101 connects to the third party server 103 again, the terminal 101 determines whether the URL of the connected server matches the URL recorded in the stored cookie (step S1104). As a result of the matching in the step S1104, when those two URLs match each other, the terminal 101 sends out the cookie as an extended header of the http get request (step S1105). The third party server 103, to which the cookie is sent, detects the cookie sent from the terminal 101 and performs a process(es) according to the content of the cookie.
By performing the processes in accordance with the above-described flow, it is possible to uniquely identify the terminal 101 on the third party server 103 side irrespective of the IP address assigned to the terminal 101. Further, by storing attribute information or the like of an end user(s) who possesses a terminal in an application layer in addition to the cookie, it is also possible to uniquely identify the end user possessing the terminal and return a personalized response to that end user.